Ice Cream Ireland

 This might interest some of the bakers out there - for our book launch, we had edible icing sheets printed with the book cover for a honey lavender and single-estate chocolate ice cream cake. There are obviously many applications for this - from photos of kids for a birthday to a wedding couple for a wedding cake.

There are quite a few companies on both sides of the Atlantic who print edible icing for cakes. If you’re really gung-ho you can even buy your own printer with edible ink. For us, it was just a once-off for fun.

We ordered our’s from anycake.com in the UK, and they were very responsive and helpful.

Technorati tags: printed, icing, cake, ice cream, edible

 This was just passed on to me:

If you want to start making your own ice cream, Aldi has an inexpensive domestic ice cream maker on special for €29.99. I don’t know the brand so I can’t vouche for the quality, but no doubt it will do the trick…

Technorati tags: Aldi, domestic, ice cream, maker

 In reponse to my last post about pirouettes, Donal very helpfully pointed out that the cookies could just as easily be shaped around the bottom of a glass, making a cookie basket as a vehicle for ice cream. I tried it, and indeed he is right (not that I doubted him for an instant). The only issue is that you have to work very quickly indeed before the cookies harden.

I started thinking about the recipe, and I thought it is very similar to a tuile (meaning “tile” in French). In fact, the ingredients and process is virtually identical, except generally you’d shape a tuile over a rolling pin. I guess the only difference is the shape. So what is a this? A Panier?

Technorati tags: pirouette, cookie, tuile, baking 

 Brian, over at Chocolate Gourmand recently published a recipe and how-to for pirouettes. These cookies, perhaps named for the circular dressage move, are light, tubular cookies formed by rolling them around a wooden spoon.

What interests me about them especially is that they use egg whites and so are a great way to use the whole egg when making ice cream (where you usually just use the yolks). 

They go really well with ice cream, and are similar to the wafers we use for sundaes. I’m not going to post a recipe as Brian has done so here (complete with helpful how-to photos).

I didn’t have any trouble making them, and they are great fun to do. Perhaps when I make them again I’ll try dipping one half of them in chocolate!

Technorati tags: pirouette, cookie, recipe, baking 

[youtube]D6CLoRuvGcY[/youtube] I had heard about the egg and bacon ice cream at the Fat Duck - a bit of molecular gastronomy from Heston Blumenthal’s wild and weird tasting menu. I found the above video, showing it up close and personal, on the All Things Ice Cream blog.

It wouldn’t be my thing at all, but you might find it interesting!

Technorati tags: Fat Duck, egg, bacon, ice cream

 Feeling the need for a little chocolate burst last night, I went making some cookies. I have written about Pierre Herme here and here. The recipe came from him via Dorie Greenspan’s excellent cookbook Paris Sweets, which is a compendium of desserts from Paris’ best pastry shops.

What makes these cookies really special is the inclusion in the ingredients of fleur de sel, hand-harvested sea salt that is less salty and more flavourful than regular salt. Although the recipe only calls for half a teaspoon, it’s a distinctive flavour in the final cookie and really works well. (I actually have “fior di sale,” which comes from Italy rather than France, but is the same idea.)

These are dead easy and will disappear very quickly indeed, so I highly recommend them. Rather than write up the recipe, I will refer you to Dessert First, where Anita has already done so. She rates them as her favourite cookies. I’d better eat the last few before I make up my mind! 

P.S. - The photos don’t really show how dark and full of chocolate they are. I took the photos late at night, and it’s impossible for me to be patient and fiddle with lighting and camera settings when there are fresh cookies cooling!

Technorati tags: korova cookies, sables, chocolate, Dorie Greenspan, Pierre Herme

[youtube]uK8-3lFuL1A[/youtube]

Virtually every recipe I have written for hot chocolate, chocolate ice cream, or chocolate sauce involves making a chocolate emulsion. An emulsion is simply a mixture of two liquids that don’t normally mix, such as oil and water. Chocolate can be a bit tricky to work with, and consistently getting a smooth, glossy final product is not always so easy. In fact, I struggled with it before going off to France for the Valrhona chocolate course. There, I learned a very simple trick that’s shown in this video - adding warm liquid to warm chocolate in small parts, mixing all the time, until you have a very professional looking product.

Anyway, here’s the video! I hope it’s helpful. Here are recipes where it might come in handy:

• Hot Chocolate
• Winter Hot Chocolate
• Aztec Hot Chocolate
• Chocolate Sauce
• Hot Fudge Sauce
• Chocolate Whiskey Sauce
• Chocolate Ice Cream
• Chocolate Whiskey Ice Cream

Technorati tags: hot chocolate, chocolate, emulsion, sauce, video

 Amazing what comes to my attention. Here’s the latest ice cream accessory: if you suffer frosty fingers from eating ice cream out of the tub, you can order this Cuddle your ice cream cozy (by Gracie Designs) for $8. That is, I suppose, cheaper than gloves.

And to go back, for a moment, to Delizia! and eating food on the fly - here’s a bit of information from Mr. Dickie in case you’re travelling to Italia and wondering about Italian ice cream etiquette:

In Italy, ice cream is the only thing that can be enjoyed legitimately while walking, but even then the cone should be wrapped in a napkin, with another napkin ready to dab the mouth, and the maximum permitted speed is a gentle amble.

It’s a bit unclear whether eating a full tub in an ice cream cozy while ambling gently is in breach. I suppose it is, so take along a thick skin and a few extra napkins.

Technorati tags: cuddle my ice cream, gracie designs, Italy, accessory

 As we go into the New Year, I’m sure that many people have weight on their minds, so I thought I’d write about it. Of course, personal weight doesn’t interest me much, but using weight in recipes is another matter!

Specifically, I wanted to pass on an important tip going into 2008 and that is to:

Always use weight as a measure for dry ingredients.

If recipes offer both volume and weight measures for things like sugar, chocolate, etc., use weight! If recipes offer only volume measures for dry ingredients, convert it to weight and make a note on the recipe.

A basic kitchen scale is a very cheap investment that will pay huge dividends, since the weight of dry ingredients doesn’t vary. Volume measures do (much more than you might think) and that could spoil a recipe.

A cup of sugar, for example, depending on how packed it is, can easily make a recipe too sweet (or not sweet enough). If you want to measure out a cup of sugar, you most likely will give the measuring cup a little shake to level the sugar for an easier reading. That shake settles the sugar and means you will need more to fill the cup. Top it up, and the recipe will turn out sweeter. Give it another shake, and even more sugar will fill the cup. The size of the sugar granules also vary in different regions, and smaller granules mean that more fit in the measuring cup. All of this goes away as an issue if you use weight.

Other dry or solid ingredients have similar problems - for example, I’ve never known how to pack butter into a cup! Also, what’s a cup of chocolate? You can buy chocolate as a bar, little drops, or big pieces, and each will fill a cup differently. So the easiest thing is to use weight!

In our production, we use metric when we weigh ingredients, because it’s so much simpler. If you like using ounces, you should know that an ounce can be almost as confusing as a cup (I’ve written about the problems of using non-metric volume measures here).

There’s the scarily named avoirdupois ounce (most common), troy ounce, and apothecary’s ounce, to name just a few, all weighing different amounts. For liquid weight measures, a UK liquid ounce is different from a US liquid ounce.

If you want help with conversions, there’s a very handy website here.

Happy cooking in 2008!

Technorati tags: measure, recipe, Imperial, metric, conversion, weight

Wondering how, in rural Ireland, you might get your hands on balsamic vinegar from Osteria Francescana in Modena or some verjus? I found out via Caroline that Anne of Greatfood.ie has launched an Irish Gourmet food store, which you will find here.

Technorati tags: Great Food, gourmet, food, Ireland